A Streetcar Named Desire

Ballet by Nancy Meckler and Annabelle Lopez Ochoa after Tennessee Williams’ play of the same name
World premiere on April 11, 2012 at Scottish Ballet
Premiere at the Estonian National Opera on November 4, 2017

For the 65th anniversary year of Tennessee Williams’ Pulitzer Prize-winning play (1947), Scottish Ballet presented a vibrant new take on “A Streetcar Named Desire”, collaborating with international choreographer Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and theatre and film director Nancy Meckler to create a powerful infusion of drama and dance with Estonian dancer Eve Mutso as one of the leading characters.

Eve Mutso: “A Streetcar Named Desire” is a special production, as it was created by a choreographer and theatre director. It is not based on a fairy-tale, but one of the most outstanding plays of the 20th century. Blanche is the most complex role I have created, dancing her has been a great challenge. There is something about the production that makes it relevant today – Scottisch Ballet has brought it back to its repertoire several times and I will guest in the role on their American tour in 2017.”

Nancy Meckler: “When Annabelle Lopez Ochoa and I began working on “A Streetcar Named Desire”, we were inspired when we learnt that Tennessee Williams had thought of calling the play “The Moth”, suggesting a delicate creature attracted to the heat of a flame. This led us to our first image of a vulnerable, bright young woman reaching and trying to touch a lightbulb suspended over her head, a light which represents desire, a light which can also burn and kill her. Her story is related gradually in the play but it became apparent that ballet would allow us to tell all of Blanche’s history. We introduce Blanche Dubois as a young girl and are able to follow her through all the trauma, which leaves her a desperate alcoholic, with nowhere to turn. By the time she gets to New Orleans intent on staying with her sister, we are clued in to her dilemma. We are taking Williams’ play as a starting point and an inspiration. Exploring his tale through the language of dance invites us to go inside the characters’ heads and express their deepest desires, dreams, and fears. Blanche’s inner life is brimming with fantasy and harsh memory, invisible in a play, but in this case, visible and expressed through dance.”